Many heart disorders can cause symptoms, morbidity (e.g., syncope or stroke), and mortality. Common heart disorders caused by arrhythmias include inappropriate sinus tachycardia (“IST”), ectopic atrial rhythm, junctional rhythm, ventricular escape rhythm, atrial fibrillation (“AF”), ventricular fibrillation (“VF”), focal atrial tachycardia (“focal AT”), atrial microreentry, ventricular tachycardia (“VT”), atrial flutter (“AFL”), premature ventricular complexes (“PVCs”), premature atrial complexes (“PACs”), atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (“AVNRT”), atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (“AVRT”), permanent junctional reciprocating tachycardia (“PJRT”), and junctional tachycardia (“JT”). The sources of arrhythmias may include electrical rotors (e.g., ventricular fibrillation), recurring electrical focal sources (e.g., atrial tachycardia), anatomically based reentry (e.g., ventricular tachycardia), and so on. These sources are important drivers of sustained or clinically significant episodes. Arrhythmias can be treated with ablation using different technologies, including radiofrequency energy ablation, cryoablation, ultrasound ablation, laser ablation, external radiation sources, directed gene therapy, and so on by targeting the source of the heart disorder. Since the sources of heart disorders and the locations of the source vary from patient to patient, even for common heart disorders, targeted therapies require the source of the arrhythmia to be identified.
Unfortunately, current methods for reliably identifying the sources and their source locations of a heart disorder can be complex, cumbersome, and expensive. For example, one method uses an electrophysiology catheter having a multi-electrode basket catheter that is inserted into the heart (e.g., left ventricle) intravascularly to collect from within the heart measurements of the electrical activity of the heart, such as during an induced episode of VF. The measurements can then be analyzed to help identify a possible source location. Presently, electrophysiology catheters are expensive (and generally limited to a single use) and may lead to serious complications, including cardiac perforation and tamponade. Another method uses an exterior body surface vest with electrodes to collect measurements from the patient's body surface, which can be analyzed to help identify an arrhythmia source location. Such body surface vests are expensive, are complex and difficult to manufacture, and may interfere with the placement of defibrillator pads needed after inducing VF to collect measurements during the arrhythmia. In addition, the vest analysis requires a computed tomography (“CT”) scan and is unable to sense the interventricular and interatrial septa where approximately 20% of arrhythmia sources may occur.